Big Screen Rome - Amazon Web Services

shared experience of every society at play. Roman comic genius goes on to
influence the comedy stages and screens of countless societies, from the
plays of Shakespeare and Molière to the novels of Jane Austen and Oscar
Wilde. Such influence can also be detected in more modern entertainment
versions of domestic and romantic chaos, like Steve Martin’s Father of
the Bride movies (1991, 1995) and Chevy Chase’s series of Vacation
films (1983, 1985, 1989, 1997), and any television situation comedy with a
premise built around a family or a domestically inclined group of friends,
such as Seinfeld (1990–8), Frasier (1993–2004), and Married . . . With Children
(1987–97).
Background to the Film
The film A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum is based on
the hit Broadway stage musical of the same name produced in 1962, with
music and lyrics by composer Stephen Sondheim, and book by Burt
Shevelove and Larry Gelbart. Gelbart’s career as a comic writer for stage
and screen spans several decades and many different performance media,
including radio, television, and film. During the golden age of radio in the
1940s, Gelbart wrote jokes for such popular radio personalities as Bob
Hope, and in the 1950s he joined the brilliant staff of writers on Sid
Caesar’s television hit, Your Show of Shows, where he worked alongside
Mel Brooks and Neil Simon. After writing a few plays in the 1960s, including
A Funny Thing, Gelbart went back to television to develop, write, and
produce the critically acclaimed series M*A*S*H (1972–83), which he
worked on for its first four seasons. Gelbart’s film credits include such
comic hits as Oh, God! (1977) and Tootsie (1982), both of which were
nominated for screenwriting Oscars.
For composer Sondheim, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the
Forum represented an important turning point in his creative career, as it
was the first time he had written both the music and the lyrics for a play,
after having penned just the lyrics for the productions of West Side Story
(1957), music by Leonard Bernstein, and Gypsy (1959), music by Jule
Styne. In the next few decades, the prolific Sondheim went on to compose
several musicals, among them A Little Night Music (1973) and Sweeney
Todd (1979), as well as film scores and songs, in the movies Reds (1981)
and Dick Tracy (1990). The Broadway musical format comes remarkably
close in evoking the raucous mood of ancient Roman comedy for our
modern eyes and ears, and Sondheim’s outrageously funny and often rowdy
166 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM (1966)